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Holm turned down UFC's first offer

As a former professional boxer, and currently undefeated in mixed martial arts, Holm has already received an offer from the UFC. However, as her boxing coach Mike Winklejohn explained, it wasn't right at the moment but he's confident Holm will transition to the UFC soon:

As Holly Holm looks to extend her professional MMA record to 6-0 Friday night, the question remains just how far "The Preacher's Daughter" is from fighting in the UFC.

According to her long-time coach Mike Winkeljohn, the UFC has already offered her a deal.

"We have talked to the UFC a few times already," Winkeljohn told MMAFighting.com. "We're just a little far apart on making the deal. We're just waiting for the UFC to make the right deal, and we're ready to go."

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- For the first time in her brief mixed martial arts career, Holly Holm saw the judges’ scorecards in a fight. Judging by the results, she liked the deeper waters just fine.

Holm earned her sixth consecutive professional MMA victory on Friday night at the Route 66 Casino, taking a clear-cut unanimous decision over Angela Hayes in the bantamweight headliner at Fresquez Productions “Havoc.” Judges Mark Sanchez, Raul Porrata and Levi Martinez all scored the bout 30-27 in favor of Holm, who had earned her previous five victories by knockout or technical knockout. Hayes falls to 6-7 in defeat.

In previous efforts, Holm often overwhelmed her opposition with a kickboxing-heavy approach. This time the Jackson’s MMA standout was able to showcase a few other aspects of her game, including a little bit of ground-and-pound.

“She had a good clinch and on the ground she made it hard for me to tee off on her. It’s the first time I’ve been there (the ground) in a fight,” Holm said.

The opening round proved to be the most difficult, as Hayes was able to close the distance and force Holm into a grinding battle in the clinch. Still, Holm appeared to be the stronger fighter and was able to control the struggle for positioning, tossing the Colorado-based fighter to the floor late in the frame.

Holm was able to find her range in round two, connecting with a variety of accurate kicks to the knees, legs and body. The New Mexico native appeared to hurt Hayes with a pair of hard body kicks late in the frame, but the 40-year-old Rough House MMA & Fitness representative made it to the end of the period.

A steady diet of low kicks to Hayes’ lead leg were Holm’s weapon of choice early in round three. Later, Hayes showcased admirable resilience by remaining upright after absorbing back-to-back head kicks from the former world champion boxer. When a wobbly Hayes attempted to clinch out of sheer desperation, Holm dragged her to the mat and moved into full mount, where she attacked with measured ground-and-pound. One final takedown in the waning seconds capped off the victory.

It was the longest time Holm had spent on the ground in her caged career to date.

“I’m glad it went there. Even toward the end of the third I thought, ‘Oh my God, just try a takedown and see.’ I need to really just believe in myself with some of that stuff,” she said. “It was great to be able to go on the ground a little bit and I felt all right being there.”

In the cage after the bout, Holm spoke only briefly about an eventual move to the UFC.

“I want to take whatever opportunity that’s in front of me that’s the best,” she said.

Ariel tweeted about the UFC having not made her an offer yet and that Holm's people said she wasn't ready yet, while others are saying both ZUFFA and Invicta offered her less than the 20K she was currently making and she wants to get some more wins to get herself a better deal.

She's really exciting(yet raw) and will eventually make it to the UFC, but I'd be happy with her taking her MMA growth more gradually.

"She's a special fighter, and people got to understand that from the boxing world. I've had conversations with the UFC, with (UFC women's matchmaker) Sean Shelby - very nice guy. We're just on different pages with the UFC. There's no doubt we want we want to go to the UFC, at the right time. But right now the UFC's in a different league. The UFC doesn't have but maybe five girls that could really give Holly competition.

"Se we're just waiting for the UFC to give Holly the right opportunity, because we want a title fight. We want to fight the best UFC fighter."

When asked what amount they were looking for for Holm's debut, Fresquez was clear.

"We're looking for six figures," he replied. "And there's not too many fighters that make six figures. Right now Holly earns probably more than 80% of the male fighters in the UFC, and probably earns more than 98 of the female fighters."

"We'd like to work with them, I don't want to be disrespectful to the UFC. But they also have to understand. They've bought Strikeforece, they've bought all these different ones. Holly's a franchise, as you can see. She's not just your normal fighter. She's more of a franchise, a key marquee. And to be honest with you, I think she'd represent the face of the UFC better than Ronda Rousey.

"She's a classy person, not that Ronda's not a classy person. I think she'd make a beautiful (face of WMMA).

I like her. Realistically she really needs a couple tough fights before talking about a title fight in the UFC. This past fight it seemed she wasn't pulling the trigger as previous bouts and wasting a lot of energy "yelling" into many strikes that had no chance of landing. Outside of Invicta and UFC I don't see her being beaten, and she needs stiffer competition.